Buildings insurance claim rejected

WICKER_3

I have a small copper flat roof over two Dormer windows at the top of my house. I had a roofer check these over last Autumn and he did not find any problem.

We had extreme gales last weekend with gusts in the county measured at up to 110 mph. The following day I discovered water coming in on 2 seperate areas in the roof. Axa authorised temp repairs to be done at the start of the week and I had a visit from the Insurance rep today. Basically he said that with copper flat roofs it is only a matter of time until they fail and it was only the storm conditions forcing the rain in areas which had probably already failed and therefore he could not support my claim!!

My arguement is that everything was fine and then after the storm I have water coming in and so it is storm damage and I should be covered.

Any advice on how to take this further would be appreciated.

Thanks

mattymoo

To my mind (having worked in insurance for 20 years) insurers seem to be using the maintenance clause more and more these days, particularly in relation to roof claims.
The fact that yours was checked out by a roofer less than 6 months ago suggests you are a carefull person who is happy to maintain their property correctly. Roofer did not find any issues so nothing more you could have been expected to do.
Go back to NU and challenge their decision. Did they have the roof looked at by a roofing contractor? I bet their rep or loss adjuster never carried out an external inspection up ladders etc so it is hard to see what they are basing their decision on.
If this does not produce a result, look into their formal complaints procedure - it will be printed in the policy booklet. It might also be worth asking the roofer if he can put something down in writing. His invoice will also show the inspection date. This will help support your argument.

The_Worker

For what it is worth I would certainly take this further

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

We had our roof damaged in the realy bad storms a couple of months ago.
Altough the house is old we only bought it 7 months before hand and so it had been checked over and had no problems.
On ringing the insurers,also by the way our mortgage company( so it was not a concern worth mentioning when they gave us the mortgage) we were told the house was old and although yes it was stormy it could not be put down to storm damage.We had no problems before this and even though we had terrible rains after we first moved in, no water damage occured but we did after these storms.
We have just had our whole roof replaced no thanks to the insurers who didnt even get back to us again.